OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

America's Opioid Crisis

Floor Speech

Date: June 13, 2018
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Health and Health Care Drugs

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Mr. KILDEE. Mr. Speaker, this week, the House is voting on bills meant to address the opioid crisis, a crisis facing communities across the country. This crisis deserves our full attention and bipartisan action. Mr. Speaker, 115 people die every day from overdose. These are real human beings.

I think of Katie Lethbridge, from my home community of Brendan Bye, lost to this terrible, terrible addiction, this terrible tragic disease.

We need more than just the legislation that is coming before us this week. We need a serious commitment to treatment, to funding treatment, not just with direct funding to ensure that the programs that support treatment are in place, but actually making sure that people have healthcare coverage that includes coverage for treatment.

When this House works to undermine the guarantee that people with a preexisting condition, which could include addiction, if it is taken from them, we are really not living up to the promise that we owe to these folks.

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